Do away with fake encounters, third degrees

In its landmark judgment sometimes back, the Supreme Court has elicited its displeasure over the fake encounters frequently carried out by the police. Media Eye revisits the ominous past and explores its wider implications.  

Human rights are frequently violated by thedabang (powerful) people and we meekly watch these happen right under our very nose. Cases of torture, custodial deaths, rapes, fake encounters, caste and creed-centric genocides and pogrom no longer spur our conscience the way it should.

An under trial charged with some petty crime like theft on condition of anonymity said that the police officials have meted out ‘inhuman’ treatment. ‘On one occasion they have even asked me to urinate over a meshwork of live wire. On my blunt refusal, they jabbed baton inside my arse so hard that I convulsed due to unbearable pain. The very next moment I was writhing in a pool of blood on the floor in great agony.’

Third-degree seems to have become a norm as our criminal jurisprudence reeks with age-old British legacy. Torture is widely used by the police. To eliminate the use of torture during investigation stage, it is absolutely necessary to impart scientific training to them. They should be provided with necessary equipments, such as lie detector and DNA Finger printing technology, to avoid third degree torture.

Article 21 of Indian Constitution says, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”  Therefore any form of torture or cruel inhuman and degrading treatment either during investigation, interrogation or otherwise needs the severest condemnation. No civilized nation can permit this to happen.

Terrorists too tortures innocent people. However, state terrorism is no answer to combat terrorism. This would only provide legitimacy to ‘terrorism’. In one of his soul stirring speech, former chief justice of India, Dr A. S. Anand in 8th International Symposium on ‘Torture’ said, “Torture is the wound in the soul so painful that sometimes you can almost touch it, but it is also so intangible that there is no way to heal it. Torture is anguish squeezing in your chest, cold as ice and heavy as a stone, paralyzing as sleep and dark as the abyss. Torture is despair and fear and rage and hate.” 

Violence cannot be spurned through violence. Had that been the case, the nerve-wracking problems of Kashmir, Kabul , Baghdad and Jerusalem would not have pushed the world almost to the brink of third world war. Similarly, fake encounters too cannot bring crime to an end. It is true that violence has surpassed all the previous limits. The demand that heinous crimes require exemplary punishment, too, is justified. But the law cannot be allowed to become a tool to serve unlawful acts, however pristine that may appear.

‘Encounter specialists’ are the product of the intoxicating thinking of our vocal middle class. To buttress their contention, they provide data showing soaring crime. But you allow this to happen today, tomorrow it may be possible that your son coming late in the night may fall prey to police’s bullets. And there is no dearth of ‘finding’ concocted pretexts and doctored evidence for these McCauley’s offspring. It is akin to replacing one set of crime with another.